And It Shatters Like Glass
by cucumber07
Summary: she's pleading, and he's sinking, and it's all he can do not to fall to his knees because that's how she makes him feel. She's the only person that's ever hurt him like this - that's ever made him feel like such a failure. AU-If Bella Chose Jacob
1. Time

**a/n - It gets a little. . . . Strange. . . Here and there. Don't be alarmed. I haven't lost my mind - I promise.**

**.**

**And It Shatters Like Glass.**

**By: Cucumber07**

**Chapter 1 - Time**

Time is meaningless.

It's goes like: pushing, pulling, tightening in his mind until he cant think.

He hears her wake up. Hears - doesn't _feel_ - because there's something in him that's so much more than she's ever given him credit for. Part of him knows he should care. Part of him knows she still wants him to. But he just sits, stares into nothing, because it's easier than pretending, and he's too damn _tired_ to give her what she needs right now. It's the slow beat of her steps, the uneasy hum of her breath that reminds him - through a haze of detached carelessness - that time has left him. It is meaningless. Days are routines and nothing and everything. Hours are meals and small talk and goodbyes. Minutes are thoughts and wishes and regrets. Seconds are effortless, emptiness. . . . Inconsequential.

Life is endless. - But not for her.

His stomach turns at the smell of breakfast, unchanged after so many years, still everything he hates in a meal. Eyes search for an escape, mouth searches for words to say, heart searches for strength to beat.

"Jacob," she calls so sweetly. "Come eat."

It's habit - the way he responds to her so immediately. But enthusiasm is too far gone to reclaim, and he wonders how he manages the smile as he enters the kitchen - their kitchen. It's hard to process her standing there, facing away from him, emptying eggs onto her plate. He remembers her when this first started, when he was still fighting so hard for her, before he became trapped in whatever _this_ is. He remembers bright brown curls, like caramel, halfway down her back. (in his hands, across his sheets, over his chest.) He remembers himself in amber eyes, bright and bursting and brilliant. He remembers happiness - contentedness - at some point before he fell into whatever _this_ is.

When she turns to him - slow, unsteady, pained - he's never felt as alone.

"I didn't hear you come in last night," she mumbles, and he barely recognizes her voice. "Did something happen?"

His eyes are focused on the table cloth - he just bought it yesterday - and he doesn't see the look she's giving him - fire slowly reigniting amber irises - like she's trying to burn through his walls, see everything he sees when he stares at their table. It's her last resort - words aren't strong enough for him anymore.

"_Is it too much to ask for you to behave?" _

_Leah grins at his back, hunched over dishes, hunched over himself. She leans in the doorway and tries to sift through the playfulness, push past the theatrics and find what's really got him in here, alone, doing dishes. He's been doing it a lot lately - searching for reasons to be by himself. Their wholeness as a pack feels depleted without him, feels off balance because he feels __**so much**__ but wont give them enough to understand. Bits and pieces only go so far in a mass of chaos - chaos that is his mind - and she doesn't like any of what she's seen. _

"_Quil was asking for it," she quips into the silence, a painful kind of silence she's unused to. "He asked, I obliged. I was being a team player." _

_She thinks she feels him smile. "Obviously."_

_The door to the kitchen is pushed open, forcing her to move, to make way for Bella and her arm full of wrappers and cups and leftovers. Leah doesn't say anything, lets her pass, because what can she say? Everything is different now and she doesn't even feel comfortable insulting the woman anymore. Eyes follow grey and pale and pastels to stand beside her Alpha, their body language speaking volumes. His tension makes her tense, his uncertainty makes her uncomfortable. She's never seen him like this - so out of his skin. Jacob is confident, strong. He's led them for almost sixty years, unwavering. She hates these feelings, she hates it all for him. _

"_So are you guys going to be here for dinner," she hears Bella ask him. "I can make whatever you want."_

_She winces at the careful tone, at the caution and the hesitance. When did this happen? When did everything change so drastically - how had she not noticed it before? And then Jacob sighs and she suddenly feels like an intruder, like she really shouldn't be there, witnessing this weakness in him. _

"_I'm running with them tonight," he says, and she's never heard him sound so empty. "I wont be back till' late."_

_Silence swells and stretches to painful proportions, making her skin itch and her heart beat a little faster. Her eyes fall to the floor under Bella's obvious distaste for the situation. It's all there - in the hand on her hip, the shaking of her fingers, the narrow set of her eyes - and he's ignoring everything, eyes fixed on the dishes he's nearly scrubbed the paint off of. _

"_Jacob," Bella hisses quietly, scooting a little closer to him. "You said you wouldn't do this anymore. I told you -" wrinkled eyes sweep quickly to Leah, searching, willing, defensive " - . . . Leah, could you give us a minute, please."_

_Her movement is minute but quick, and his voice still beats her before she can stand completely. "You're fine," words bounce off tile and carefully chosen wallpaper, head finally rises, back finally straightens, and he's burning a hole through his wife with a look Leah hasn't seen in so long. "She's fine."_

_Bella's head drawing back, away from him - away from his eyes - says it all. "I told you that I'd rather you be here at night. Why cant someone else run with them until morning? I just. . . - we haven't spent the night together in weeks. You said you'd take care of it. . . -"_

_Shaky, powdered hand reaches for him. Pristine fingers - pastel, rosy fingernails - graze hard skin, grasp for his hand. Leah tries to look away, to hide from the intimacy - hide from feelings long buried - but his stiff posture and the defensiveness she feels in the room keeps her eyes focused on his hand, moving away from Bella. _

"_I'm not throwing my responsibilities off on someone else. You're right, -" he turns to her now, backs away almost unnoticeably, but both women catch the movement. "- we did talk about it. And I reminded you of all the other times we've talked about this."_

"_You broke your promise." Voice is desperate now - clutching, grasping, reaching - searching for something she can use. _

" _- Enough -" he interrupts, turning away. _

"_You swore that you would -"_

"_- I said __**Enough**__."_

_Argument is over, Bella deflates, Jacob sits down. He doesn't watch her leave the room - like he used to watch her every move - and Leah feels so much of __**nothing**__ in him that it scares her. She's hesitant when she sits beside him, feels strange being so close to him. _

"_What was she -"_

"_It's nothing," he breaks in, hands running down face, exasperation seeping in. "Don't try to make it something."_

_Leah doesn't deflate. But he didn't expect her to. She's not weak, not afraid - not Bella - and sometimes he wonders why he once thought it was unbecoming. _

"_I don't have to try, Jake." Hesitant fingers find his arm, she cant remember the last time it felt so good to __**touch**__ someone., and feels guilty about it despite herself. "What's going on?" _

_Auburn eyes find her for the first time, clouded - throwing water over burning embers - searching her, dissecting her, peeling her open and she cant remember him ever looking at her like __**that**__. He looks down at fingers, absentmindedly running over searing skin - brows furrow, frown deepens, head tilts - and she cant express the feeling she gets. - The feeling she gets when he openly stares at her bare legs, when he doesn't shy away from the pounding of her heart, when his hand lifts from table and his fingers are slowly - tentatively - gliding up the top of her hand to her wrist. Laughter erupts from the next room and his fingers wrap around, pull her hand away from him, and it's when he's stood and started for the door that she realizes she wasn't breathing. _

_He stops at the door, eyes glance over shoulders, and he cant explain the feeling he gets. - The feeling he gets when he sees her there, hands on his table, eyes burning with something he's missed so much, face solemn and familiar and so damn beautiful. He sees it before he can check his thoughts - hands on thighs, lips on neck, back to table, hair covering table cloth - and leaves before it goes any further. _

"Yes," he says into the empty room, Bella's scent minutes faded. "Yes, something happened."

He finds their house empty when he heads for his bedroom, and part of him cant help but feel the subtle freedom in that morbidly voided space.

.

He wears a suit - a black suit - because Emily has always been one for tradition, and after all the muffins, he supposes he owes her this much.

"Emily was such a kind soul. . ."

Jacob's attention diverts - distracts - and only pieces of his mind feel guilty about it. Everything else is focused on the women on either side of him. It's all there's room for, considering how much of him each require - one knowingly, the other completely unintentional. He cant feel Bella anymore, not like he used to. She's there, to his right, so close he could tilt his head and be face down in her hair - yet, Emily feels closer to him right now. Emily - decomposing inside a fortune's worth of coffin. But it's not fair to judge based on that alone, considering Leah's potency, and it's a testament to his strength when he keeps his eyes forward, away from bare legs and the dip of her v-neck.

"Does anyone wish to speak on her behalf?"

Sam takes his place at the podium, tears streaming freely, eyes openly broken, and Jacob tries his best to pay attention to what he says. But Bella is running her hand up his leg in that way he knows - avoids - all too well and when he looks at her, what he sees nearly unseats him. His eyes find the ring on her finger, burning holes through his brain, and something in him cracks a little. It's her right, isn't it - as his wife - to touch him, to want him, to ask this of him? - to ask for intimacy and physical contact. But it almost _hurts_ - hurts to feel her on him, to remember every time they've ever been together, to remember that she's convinced of his greatness - his kindness- and that he does no wrong. He wonders what she'd think of him if she were allowed in his head.

He knows what she'd think - and it doesn't bother him. He just doesn't care. And that alone wrenches his gut into a thousand different knots, convinces him that he's become something monstrous, something terrible. He _should_ care. He _should_ feel something when she snuggles into him, when she tells him how much he means to her. He _should feel_. - but nothing ever comes. It's always nothing.

"Jacob, let's go."

The service is over and he hasn't heard a word from anyone. He missed Sam's speech - and for what? Because he cant get over his own misery long enough to let someone else be upset. Because he's so pathetically shattered that he'd rather wallow in his than deal with someone else's. He feels Leah leaving. _Feels_ her moving away from him and it takes every fiber of his being to keep his hands in his lap, to keep himself from stopping her, from asking her to stay with him because - _Christ_ - he's tired of being alone.

Bella takes his hand, tugs lightly, pats his shoulder in that sweet - weak - way of hers. He follows her, sits through the dinner afterwards, makes the drive home - all without ever speaking. He's sitting on his bed when he hears her in their bathroom, when she reminds him that he's still here, still alive and he really shouldn't be acting so much like a zombie. He hears the door open but doesn't bother to look - why would he? He just wants to sleep. He just wants to go to sleep and wake up and get through tomorrow - and the next day - and the next. He wants it to be over - this cycle he's in. He wants it to end.

"Ahem -"

There's a rasp to her voice that wasn't there a few years ago. It makes him sick - nauseous - physically uneasy. Reluctantly, he lets his eyes move to her.

"What's -"

Words die in his throat, breath shortens, everything he's been avoiding piles on top of him until he cant breathe. He doesn't mean to let his eyes go so wide. There's something self conscious in the way she shifts back and forth, something uncertain about the way she's tugging at lace of the tiny night-dress. She smiles an odd smile, one he barely recognizes, and he wishes he couldn't see the weakness. He wishes he didn't feed off of it when it suits him.

"I thought. . - I was going to do this last night but you left too early and I was asleep, I guess, when you got in. . . -"

He suppresses the grimace, chokes down the urge to flee. "You're. . - Emily's funeral was today, Bells. Do you - you really think now is a good time?"

He's almost choking on his words because he's unsure of what he's trying to say, or how he's supposed to say it.

She unhinges a little, presses her palm against the doorway, tries to hide how she has to use it for support. "You used to. . . - you know - . . Like it when you were upset. You used it, I think. Like an escape. . . - I just want to help you get through whatever's been bothering you so much." She pauses, proceeds cautiously. "I can see it, you know. I'm not blind. You just seem so. . . - so empty, now. We barely speak, Jake. I want you to come to me, like you used to."

_I'd kill you_ - it's what he's thinking, and it's probably true. Between the words he knows would rip her open and the absolute lunacy of the two of them trying to be intimate, he's sure she wouldn't survive.

"Bella. . . -" How to tell her he doesn't want her. How to tell her he hasn't for a long time. None of it seems plausible. She used to be all he wanted, and it only took three years for him to know - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that he was wrong. "I just don't -"

"Just _try_," she's pleading, and he's sinking, and it's all he can do not to fall to his knees because that's how she makes him feel. She's the only person that's ever hurt him like this. - that's ever made him feel like such a fucking failure. "Please, Jacob. We haven't slept together in. . . - my God - years. I'm still alive! I still want you. I still _need_ you. I'm still human, no matter how old I get. You said you'd love me until the end. You said you'd stop phasing and we'd grow old together and none of this would be an issue."

He flinches away from her words - like skin from fire - because they're all true. He said all those things. He said them and then didn't do them and now this whole situation _is_ an issue. He didn't stop phasing because it was his only escape, it was the only thing standing between him and her, between what she wanted and what he needed. - and now he's hurting them both.

"It's not you," he argues lamely. "It's not what you think."

He hears her let out a huff, hears her shuffle, hears her dress fall to the floor. "Look at me then!"

God, he doesn't want to. It's despicable how much he _doesn't_ want to look at her. He's supposed to be the good guy, he's supposed to be the one she was smart to choose, he was the one who saved her - right? So why does he feel like _this_? - like he's screwed their lives up and made a mess out of what was supposed to be perfect. His heart's cracking - like drywall under fist - pounding against his ribcage, he's struggling for air. His mind is screaming, reeling, swirling - but he looks at her, anyway. He looks because he loved her once - like time loved her- once upon a time, and it hurts him when he does. Hurts him like living here hurts him, like their life hurts him, like their evenings alone hurt him. Hurts him like he hurts her.

"I told you once. . -" she whispers, and there's a hint of lust somewhere in there, somewhere he doesn't want to acknowledge. "- that I was always going to be yours. - I meant that. I meant it when I said you were all I wanted, and that I would never love another. You said the same things. - Were you lying? Don't you still want me? - Like I want you?"

He can _smell_ her desire now, polluting the air and making him queasy. He cant think like this - cant think of a way _out_ of this. She's right, he said he'd love her forever. He said he'd always want her. - but he changed his mind. Is he allowed to do that? Is he allowed to want something different? - Christ - he doesn't know. Whatever mistakes he made, he's not sure they matter now. He's not sure if telling her how he feels would make things better - or worse. She obviously still loves him, still wants him in every sense of the word. Does it matter that he doesn't feel the same? Does the fact that she's seventy two years old justify his hypocritical dilemma?

He doesn't think so. - He doesn't think there's anything that could justify ending things now - now that he's let it drag on for so long.

He hadn't realized he closed his eyes - and now she's in front of him - willing them open. She's inches away from him and his eyes nearly water with the memory of what she used to be - of what time has done to her - of what it's failed to do to him. She takes his wrists, presses his hands to the skin on her hip - fragile, transparent, wrinkled - moves a little closer to him.

"I want you," she whispers to him, her breath on his ear. "I've wanted you for a long time. Just try, Jake. For me. _Please_."

It's like a nightmare - a nightmare he feels _so guilty_ for having. But it's a nightmare all the same and - _God_ - he wants to wake up. He knows that she's just as fragile as her skin and saying the wrong thing to her would be like dropping a cinder block on an ant bed - devastating. He's staring at her knees when she says it - "where were you last night?" - and thoughts - memories - take over. She knows, because he's gone again. Physically present in the room - emotionally, mentally- absent. And she doesn't know how to bring him back. She doesn't even know where he goes.

_He's doing it again - staring at her legs. She wonders what he's thinking when he does it, what it is that keeps him so interested in them. She wonders - but then she knows- because he's moving towards her and he's smiling in that way she can never understand. There's nothing to the smile - not really - but that's what makes it so enchanting. It's nothing - it's everything - it's so close to her now she can touch it. But she doesn't move. She waits for him to speak, for him to move - to do __**something**__. She hates it when he's silent, when he stares, because there's nothing about him she can read. She doesn't understand him and it's like the roles have been flipped - she was the one nobody understood - it seems like so long ago now. _

"_Where were you today?" he asks, all seriousness behind stony features. "Seth said he hadn't seen you."_

_She falters a little, tries to think of a lie because - honestly - she hadn't expected him to find her and ask. She cant tell him she thinks about that day in his kitchen, when she touched him, when he touched her and she felt all those things he's been hiding. She cant tell him she knows how much he's hurting. _

"_I just had some things I wanted to take care of. Cleaning n' stuff. . . - you know."_

_He shrugs because - no - he doesn't know, and she jumps when he takes her hand, when he turns it over and stares down at her palm, through her palm. "Do you know how long it's been. . . -" his face falls, his voice trails - quiets - until she can barely hear him. " - how long it's been since I've touched someone?"_

_Her heart nearly stops because - __**fuck**__ - he's been thinking about it, too. And what the hell is she supposed to say now? _

"_It's been __**years**__." He's so tense, so on edge, she knows he's scared. Scared to tell her what's wrong - what's hurting him so much. Scared that if he says it - it'll make it real. "It's been so many years. I just stopped. . - like I didn't care - because I didn't want to touch her anymore." He sniffs, turns eyes away from her, keeps fingers laced around her hand. "I thought that if I never touched anyone, she'd think it was me. . . - she'd think it had nothing to do with her."_

_Part of her wonders why he's telling her this. - why he's choosing now to open up to her when they've lived in a calm sort of silence for so many years. Part of her knows - and it scares her more than he does. "Jake -"_

"_I think. . - I think you reminded me." Auburn finds her, ignites her, melts her to nothing. " - reminded me how much I needed it."_

_He's so close to her now, bare chest brushing against black tank top, against breasts - rising and falling with uncertainty. His lips brush her forehead - like petals falling to water - and her eyes close before she can think better of it. She doesn't know what she wants from him - even less certain of what he wants from her - but it feels __**so good**__, and her defenses have crumbled and melded with that forgotten heat flaring in the pit of her stomach. It's molten, and she loves it, and his hands are sliding under her shirt and - __**oh my**__ - when was the last time someone touched her stomach? _

"_I don't know what I'm supposed to do. ." he whispers into her hair, backing her - pressing her - into a tree. ". . I don't know anything, anymore. . . - tell me what to do, Leah."_

_It's in the way he says her name, the way it vibrates through his chest and into hers, the way he's wrapped himself completely around her until there's nothing else. - The way he smells of coffee and earth and cinnamon. - The way his skin is burning into her, branding her, marking her without effort. _

_And she meant to say something - something helpful, something useful - but she looked up and all she could see were lips and years and almost's and she's leaning - grinding, touching, __**feeling**__ - and when they finally touch, it's bliss. It's like all those times she'd wanted to, but didn't. Like all those times he'd tried, but couldn't. It's everything she's yearned for and everything he's missed and she's drunk on his scent, on his taste, on his tongue in her mouth and his hands on her skin. It's a dance - a rhythm - and he does it so perfectly with the way he's biting her lip and pressing so far into her - she thinks he'll disappear. _

_It goes like: pushing, pulling, tightening in her mind until she cant think. _

_She's still kissing him, pressed into tree, skin burning under his fingers - and he shifts, minutely to the left, takes one hand out of her shirt. Between the madness going on in her head and the flames licking up her thighs - she barely notices his fingers tracing the edge of her shorts. She starts when they slide up, pulls away only enough to see his eyes - shattered, russet, liquefied - and she doesn't look away when she feels him trace her, when she feels him slide one, then two, inside of her. And she doesn't look away when he moves them, when he shifts and puts more pressure, when he moves them a little faster and all of her weight is falling into him because she's never felt __**that good**__. She's never felt __**that much. **__He's supporting her, pumping fingers into her, watching her. - watching her because when was the last time he saw something so beautiful? - when was the last time he was so hypnotized by the look of pleasure on someone else's face? When was the last time he __**felt so much**__? _

_Her head falls back, opens her neck - like spotlight on perfection - and his tongue is there - sucking, licking, biting. He __**feels**__ the tightening of her stomach, the pounding in her chest - and then he's feeling, too. The fire in his throat melts away doubt and it pools in his stomach with something he hasn't felt in God knows how long - and he's missed it so much. He's missed it all. _

"_Jake -"_

_His name on her lips is like Heaven. And he grabs it - he's kissing her - because he __**wants it**__ - wants her - and it's the first time in forever that he's actually wanted something - that he's actually been able to have something. He knows she's close, he can feel it - like skin feels pain - and he pushes a little harder, a little faster, because he wants to see it all on her face when she tumbles over. He wants to see everything - and he does. She's a moving picture - a story - and he watches it all play out and listens as she whispers everything and nothing and more. When she's finished, he's still holding her, still inside of her, and he tries to remember a time when he was so reluctant to let go of anything. - like she'll run away and he'll never have this again. _

"_I don't feel guilty," he tells her eyes - questions and worry and hope. "I don't want you to either."_

_She knows he's lying - can see it in the set of his jaw, the curve of his lip - but she nods, anyway because she cant remember a time when she's felt this whole. She cant remember the last time she's seen him this __**alive**__. _

_He kisses her and they part in a strange kind of silence that's always been them. _

He reaches into empty space - realizes he's alone again. Moments before Bella was there - naked, demanding, pleading - and now he's alone. Some distant part of his mind registers that he's killing them both when he does this- when he leaves her here to go somewhere that's either past or a hopeful kind of future. But this nightmare is too real to comprehend sometimes and moments like these - he kind of wishes he could disappear. Like he could make it all just. . . - stop. He hears her in the kitchen, hears her sniffles - her weakness - and his face is buried in his hands, darkness overlapping misery until he's swimming with nothing but grey. She's on the phone with someone - with Clair - and she's crying openly into the silence she still thinks is safe. Distance is nothing to him - he hears it all. He hears it - doesn't feel it - and isn't sure he ever will again.

.

**a/n. - This will be pretty short, I think. Two or three chapters. Maybe four at the most. I know I have other 'projects' that need to be taken care of but I've been thinking on this for a while and, considering I haven't read many other fics (if any) touching on Bella staying with Jacob and growing old, the issues that would undoubtedly cause, and of course Leah's role in it all - I wanted to go ahead and post the first chapter- test out the reactions. =) Thank you all soooo very much for reading =) I hope you enjoyed. I'll be getting the second part of this out ASAP.**


	2. Change

**And It Shatters Like Glass**

**By: Cucumber07**

**Chapter 2 - Change**

Consequence is a strange concept. - At least for him.

It goes like: running, hiding, guilt seeping into every inch of his being.

"I'm confused."

He hears the voice - remembers the voice - but cannot elicit a reaction. There's movement behind him, footsteps rising and falling until they stop at his back - only a few inches away.

"You said this was what you wanted." Shuffling, dirt and gravel crunching. "You seemed so content. I don't understand."

"Things change," Jacob barely whispers, but he knows Edward hears. "I changed."

"Is it change, or is it age?"

Jacob stands then, turns around and nearly growls because - dammit! - why does it always go back to her age? Why does it always circle back to how she looks - how different she is?

"It has nothing to do with her age and everything to do with me. It's. . -" his guard falls - hands to his sides, chin to his chest, eyes to the dirt because it's too damn hard to talk about, especially to someone he used to hate _so much_. " - it's been years, and I'm tired."

"Tired of what?"

"Pretending."

Edward's eyes narrow a little, but Jacob doesn't take it as a sign. The Cullens have always seemed a little void. "Why didn't you end it? Back before it mattered, before she _really_ loved you? What happened?"

"Why are you asking when we both know you can see?"

Edward flinches then, and Jacob's confusion expands. "I'm trying to have a conversation with you, Jacob. You and I . . . - we're not so different."

Radiant, auburn eyes cloud, head shakes with irritation. "Right," - sniffs, loud breath through barely parted lips. "You were strong enough to let her go."

Edward hesitates because, really, what can he say? They both know the situation could have -_ should_ have - been avoided. Bella was something so different than either of them could have ever expected. They hadn't been prepared for her - Jacob in his youth, Edward in his indifference, in his hunger for something new.

"I was selfish," whisper through cold lips. "I didn't want to be responsible for her death. For her losing everything."

"No," Jacob says and turns away, eyes drinking in the vast, endless land that is La Push. "You did the right thing. What was best for everyone. Because being with her _was_ wrong, we both know it. It was unnatural - you couldn't do anything for her. Had nothing to offer her but death and loss. I was so young. I thought I could give her more."

"You did."

Jacob scoffs because -whatever- he did not. "Like what?"

Edward stares at years worth of tension twisted and knotted into shoulders bearing more weight than he'd have ever guessed. He wonders just what it is that keeps him going - what pushes him through the day. "Life."

"I gave her a shell," Jacob huffs, thumbs hooking into pockets, feet shifting effortlessly through dirt. "It's all hollow - all fake. I never realized just how much I denied her until she started asking for more. More house, more yard, more friends, more decorations for holidays. . . - more family."

Edward is beside him now, perfect hair whipping in a perfect breeze, a strange sort of understanding lightening the air just a fraction. "She wanted children?"

"She used to talk about you and your family," Jacob steers, head tilting - remembering. "about how you would never have children. How she felt sorry for Alice and Rosalie and Esme. Said she couldn't bare the thought of being incapable of creating life." A humorless laugh, dark eyes sinking further into the past. "I didn't hear what she was really saying - I didn't hear that she wanted to have my kids. Just what it was. She felt sorry for you because you _couldn't_. I never thought about the fact that I _wouldn't_. Not until it was too late."

"She got too old?"

"She gave up when I never gave in." Head shakes, teeth grinding a little. "I didn't even realize I was fighting her."

"It's funny," Edward rocks back on heels, brows raising easily. " - it's funny that you think so highly of me leaving her."

Brown eyes shift minutely - scrutinizing porcelain face. "It's more than I can say for myself."

Puff of breath from lungs long unused drifts in front of stony features, disappears into a cobalt sky. "All this time I've told myself I did the right thing," Edward mumbles, hands tucking into jacket pockets - as if the denim could warm him somehow. "But deep down. . . - deep down I always knew that it wasn't for her."

Jacob looks at him - _really_ looks at him, then. He finds too much familiarity - too much of himself to be possible for someone that is just _so different. _There's a catch in the colors of Edward's eyes - a truth, par se, that Jacob cant remember seeing before. "What do you mean?"

"I came back, once," monotone shifts to pensive, face falling back into the year he left - sinking. "I came back because I could never get over the look on her face when I left her in the woods. Her eyes. . . - they were so empty. I could never get over how cold it made me feel. Like I really was some sort of monster." Unneeded inhalation, necessary for this moment, only because he remembers what it felt like when someone took his breath away - when _she _took his breath away. "I smelled you all over her house - in her room, in the kitchen, in her truck. I followed it until I found you on the beach, both laying in the sand like there was nothing else in the world worth your time. I remember thinking that I should have felt something in that moment - seeing her with another man, seeing her kiss your cheek, hold your hand. It should have made me jealous, regretful. . . _something. _But I was okay with it. All of those things I'd felt for her that year - when she first showed up in my class. . - they were gone. Maybe it had only been a direct result of my solitude - of the fact that I was always punishing myself for what I am. I still don't really know. . . Didn't think about it too much after I left again. . . - I didn't think about Bella for a long time. Even when Alice told me she was getting married. . .I couldn't make myself hate either of you. I just didn't feel like you'd done anything wrong."

Jacob's brows gather with the picture - Edward being yards away, watching them, _leaving_ them without a word. All his ideas of what Bella shared with the vampire didn't seem so secure anymore. - nothing is secure, anymore. "You didn't want her back?"

Edward shrugs. "I don't know what I wanted. I loved the idea of she and I - together forever in some romantic setting, traveling the world and living out eternity with anything at our disposal. Red roses and sunsets and silk sheets." Distant eyes roll up, then down - face solemn in a way Jacob understands "In some ways, I think I was just lonely. Nobody understood me quite like she did. Well, nobody was quite as interested in me as she was. I'm not really sure we had the chance to understand each other. Everything fell apart so quickly. Sometimes I dare to think that we never really loved each other - or rather, I never loved her like she loved me, if we're being honest." Liquid gold shifts to the stars, wonderment overlapping reverie until his face is a vision of contentment - easiness. "Sometimes I wonder what would have become of us all had she never come here."

Jacob nods slowly because he's had the same thought - probably more often than he should have. "No matter how you slice it, you still let her go. Reasons don't really matter anymore - not for you, anyway.'

The wind whistles quietly through trees below, the smallest of the gravel and the sheet of leaves covering the cliff's floor blown carelessly over the edge - Jacob suddenly wonders what it would be like to fly. Maybe it's the crisp of the air, or the freedom in the endlessness laid out before him - there are too many factors to pinpoint just what it is that has his heart racing and his mind humming.

Edward clears his throat. "So why did you stay. If you knew you didn't love her?"

Dark lashes close over dark eyes, dimmed with thoughts of reasons he just cant justify. "I felt responsible for her," he says slowly - as if testing out the words, checking to be sure they wont poison him. "I had taken care of her for so long. . . Who else if not me? I didn't see any other options. I was blind to the rest of the world. To my friends, telling me I needed to move on. To my family, telling me she was going to kill me. . . . - I should have listened to them."

Edward gives a subtle glance, raises a brow. "I doubt she could ever kill you."

"No," Jacob says, and almost laughs because it is a little dramatic. "Maybe not in a literal sense. But sometimes I think that, emotionally, she has. I've lost everything. Nothing feels right anymore. I don't know how to deal with things - just her. And I hate it. I hate her sometimes because I know it would be different without her. But then I hate myself because I asked her to stay."

Edward buckles under the depth of Jacob's words - for once in his life, he's uncertain of the right thing. Carlisle has always warned him that not all things can be black or white. . . - he finds that truth in Jacob, as sad as it is to face. He looks at the wolf, at the man, and a desolate smile pulls at the corners of his lips. "Maybe you can fix things."

Jacob takes on a look that Edward translates easily. "Maybe not with Bella - not so soon, anyway. But with your friends. It's not too late with them. They would understand if you just talked to them."

"I don't know why I let things get so bad," Jacob mumbles, and it's the weakest he's ever sounded. "What kind of Alpha am I? What kind of friend does that?"

"One that's just as human as they are," Edward reasons quietly. "You cant help what you've let this do to you, but you can make it right. There's very little I think can stop you when you really want something."

Jacob grins and there's something strange behind Edward's words, something he thinks would have meant more had he come back and fought for the girl they both loved. He wonders what would have happened if they had been at arms for her affections.

"Seeing the outcome now," a whisper through stretched silence, an answer to Jacob's thoughts. "I think she would have lost either way."

"That, bloodsucker, we agree on."

Edward smirks at the name that, at one time, would have sent him into a defensive rage. "Seems we agree on more than just that, my furry little friend."

Jacob turns and takes heavy steps towards home, shrugs into the darkness. "Who knew?"

"I wanted to thank you," Edward says loudly, looking over his shoulder. "For letting Carlisle and his friends come back for all these years. They've learned a lot through their research. . . . - it would have been impossible without your cooperation."

"No problem, Eddie," Jacob says lightly. "I'll see ya around. ."

He lets him reach the trees before he asks, sure he can still hear. "Do you care for her?"

Silence.

"Is it more than you're acknowledging?"

Both men see too much at one time. . .

Dark hair weaved through calloused fingers, bare limbs tangled, hot lips trailing down. . . .down. . .

"Why are you asking when we both know you can see?"

Edward stares out at the vast, endless land that is La Push, and no longer doubts his decision to return.

.

It feels strange - uncomfortable, even - standing in front of this door. He hasn't been here in so long. He'd forgotten what it looks like.

"Jake?"

His head turns a little too quickly and he's trying his best to look like he's cool with being here, like he doesn't feel out of place. He shouldn't, after all, and he doesn't want to make things any weirder than they have to be.

"Hey. . - Embry . ." voice is unnaturally high, hand is scratching the back of his neck. . This shouldn't be so damn difficult. "How's it goin?"

"Uh. . Good, I guess?" Familiar eyes travel the front yard, brows raised apprehensively. "Is something wrong?"

Jacob wants to cringe at the reaction, wants to dodge and run and hide from the reality that has become their friendship. He shakes his head. "No, no. It's nothing like that. I just. . - I just wanted to, uh. Talk?"

There's a brief second where Jacob thinks he'll be left out on the front porch, left to think about how many times he's turned Embry away when he's come to his door, to think about how many times he's ignored everyone else's problems and denied their attempts to talk to him. But Embry shifts his keys from one hand to the other, takes the steps two at a time and leaves the door open behind him when he goes in.

"So what'd you wanna talk about? Everything okay?"

Jacob stands awkwardly in the living room's threshold, looks between the fireplace - pictures and memories and their lives - and the T.V. . . - when did he get a flat screen? He recognizes the blanket thrown over the back of the couch, recognizes Old Quil's stitch work. He notes the paint on the walls, brown now - not red. He sees the football helmet on the desk beside the closet, sees them at age twelve, wishing they could play with the older kids because their team _sucked. _

"Yeah. ." he pauses when Embry looks at him because they both know anything further than 'yeah' would be a lie. "No."

Embry seems confused, rightfully so, and Jacob finally gathers enough of himself to take a seat on the couch. "What have you heard?"

"That Bella went to stay with Clair for a few days. Said she was really upset. . ." pause before hitting it head on because he's honestly not sure how Jacob will react. He's not sure about anything when it comes to Jacob anymore. "What happened between you two? It's been like the Twilight Zone lately. You and your zombie moods and Bella with her weird little phases. I don't get it, man."

He's not sure what he expected when he decided to come here, but he hadn't planned on getting into the dirt so soon. He stares at the coffee table for a few seconds, remembers the point in what he's doing - why he needs to be here. "She tried to sleep with me."

Silence floats around for less than a second before Embry starts laughing and, despite the situation, Jacob laughs a little, too. "Shut up, it's not funny."

"No," rasps between bowls of laughter. "No it's not. But WHY!"

A smile forms, changes the dimensions of his face until Embry thinks he actually recognizes the man in front of him. "I don't know. Said something about how she wants me to come to her. . . That she still wants me. I just . . . - I don't want to hurt her feelings but. . .I just don't _see_ her that way anymore."

"Did you tell her that?"

"Not in so many words. . ."

"So no?"

"Nope."

Embry sobers a bit, sits up in his seat. "What did you say?"

"That it wasn't her. . . I don't know. Cant really remember."

The room seems as if it's stretched, leaving more room to breathe, room to speak a little more freely. "I already knew all this, Jake. We all know how you feel. You don't hide it as well as you think."

"Yeah, well, it makes me feel better to think as much."

They both smile.

"Clair said Bella's convinced that you're having an affair."

Jacob's smile is smacked off his face as quickly as it was brought about and he's back to that place - that cramped, suffocating box he's always in.

"Jake?"

Maybe he was supposed to deny it. Maybe he was supposed to seem a little more confident when he shook his head - but he's not, and Embry notices. An air of confirmation floats between them and they're both a little tense when the question is finally asked.

"Who?"

Jacob closes his eyes, runs a hand through his hair - as if he can wipe the question away and forget it was asked. "Leah."

"Jesus Christ."

It's not so much the surprise as her name leaving Jacob's lips because, lets face it, he hasn't said her name in a really long time. Embry shakes his head, puts a hand over his mouth, leg bouncing almost nervously. "How long?"

"It's only been once, really," Jacob tries to reason with himself, guilt quickly getting the better of him. "We didn't have sex. . . - but I . . - it's. . ."

"I get it, Jake," Embry interrupts, his friend's discomfort unnerving him.

There's a moment, during this new silence, that Jacob thinks Embry will disapprove - as he should. He thinks that their friendship is too far gone and this secret is just too big for them to handle. He thinks that everything is just so wrong now - there is no fixing it. For just a moment, he thinks Edward is an idiot - and he was an even bigger one for listening to him.

"We'll figure this out, man," Embry says quietly, eyes lifting and grounding Jacob just like they always have. "Whatever you decide to do, you know I'm with you. As long as you're doing something - I cant watch you like this anymore. It's hurting everyone - Not just you and Bella."

Embry smiles - and Jacob _feels_ it for the first time in years.

.

He smells like alcohol and cigarette smoke - why not? - he'll never die. And she finds herself breathing him in despite the uneasy feeling she gets when approaching him. - Like she doesn't know him. Like he's a stranger.

"Where've you been?"

Some distant part of her mind registers that maybe she shouldn't start every conversation with a question - like he's a child, like he has to answer to her. - But after all these years he does, doesn't he? It's her right, isn't it? He agreed to this life and he isn't being fair. Nothing is fair, anymore.

"With Embry."

There's a moment in which she thinks she should turn and walk away - that she should leave him alone because his eyes are shining a strange shade of brown (embers, fire, burning) and his jaw is too tight and she thinks she can hear his teeth grinding behind a mask she still cant seem to dissect. He looks different tonight - with a full moon and lower temperatures and skin that simmers under freezing rain - and she recognizes something in his face that she hasn't seen in so long.

"Who is she?"

Maybe it's not a good time - muscles tensing, eyes narrowing, another drag through pursed lips - but she stands her ground because this is Jacob and she is Bella and she's the only person that has the right to question him. - she _does_ have the right to question him.

"Why don't you tell me - or should we go ask Clair? Maybe you mentioned a name to her while you were puking the rest of our business up at her feet."

She doesn't flinch because - fuck him - she can do whatever she wants. She's tired of this shady - silence, uncertainty - attitude and wont stand for it anymore. "Don't even act like you don't talk to Embry or Quil or any of the others about our life. They see it all in your fucking head, anyway. Who cares?"

His shoulders are shaking and for a second - eyes peering, feet shifting on drenched wood - she wonders if he's crying. "Well we know who doesn't."

She rolls her eyes and she's huffing indignantly because he's being ridiculous - he's always like this - and sometimes she wishes she could just have her say (just make him shut up). Nobody listens to her now. "I needed someone to talk to. You're never around. I'm sorry that I have to go elsewhere for support."

"Because you cornered me on the night of Emily's funeral or -"

"Yes!" she nearly shouts - nearly because it's just not that easy for her anymore. "Yes and yes! You wont sleep with me, wont talk to me, wont be _around _me! What am I supposed to do?"

He pauses and ignores the pounding in his head, the desire to run - _need_ to flee - because he's getting a little tired of always having to find somewhere else to go. Why cant he just be here one night - at home, _his _home - without getting this feeling? He's closing his eyes and remembering a time when he used to be happy - when he could actually feel it, didn't have to envision it. - tries to fight the claustrophobia.

"Go in the house before you get yourself sick."

"I'm fine, I -"

"It's almost forty degrees out here and it's raining - go inside."

"Come with me."

Amber irises melt behind closed lids, thoughts uprooting themselves from his front porch - traveling to somewhere these problems cant touch him. He hears Bella's voice somewhere in the distance but cant trouble himself to listen to what she's saying. - cant because he hears soft voices on a television. . .the low hum of a fan . . .

"_To what do we owe __**this**__ pleasure? Our almighty alpha making a house call - in the middle of the rain. . .at one in the morning?"_

_Jacob rolls his eyes and pushes past her, tries - fails, fails __**so miserably**__ - to avoid touching her as he enters her living room. He grins when he sees Seth - Xbox controllers, popcorn - and he's sitting beside him, playing along before anyone has the chance to speak again. It feels so good - this high he's riding. Embry started it with a football game and a thirty pack of beer - Jacob continues it with Seth and Leah and Paul in her living room at one in the morning. _

_He pretends he doesn't see her eyes - burning, roving, __**wanting**__ - but he's loving the way he feels them - sparks, fire - all over the bare skin of his chest, his shoulders, his neck. It's all very interesting - but he hasn't played video games in __**so long**__ and he'll die before he lets Paul kill him __**again**__. It isn't until he feels something against the back of his neck - until he looks up and sees Leah standing there, pretending to watch their game - that he remembers what was pulling him here to begin with. _

"_I'm going to bed," she says, and there's something in her voice that makes his skin crawl. "Seth, clean up your mess before you leave."_

_She gets a short nod from her brother - one Jacob hardly registers through the thudding of her heart, just above him. He starts to wonder what it is that's got her so riled up - and knows when her lips are against his ear, whispering an almost silent, "come with me."_

_It isn't like her - to be so forward, and it's really not like him - to get up and follow her to the stairs, down the hallway, to her room - door closing behind him. He isn't sure what he's expecting from this - what she's asking of him because, after all, he's the one that started this whole thing. And after a few days, nothing about that night fading - hearts thudding, breath catching, skin burning - he realizes that he was never really sure what he wanted from her, why watching her squirm against his hand was more of a release for him than anything he's experienced in years. He doesn't know why he's feeling all of this for her, why he sees her every time he closes his eyes. . .they've barely spoken over the past two years - but then he does know because there's always been something in her that he craves, something about the fire licking up her irises that's always sent his stomach dropping and his heart racing. _

_Her room is bigger than he'd have thought - grey carpet, purples on her bed, purples on her windows - and he sighs inwardly at how cool the air is. He's always loved box fans - calm, soothing, comfortable. And he's rolling his eyes when he remembers Bella's lame excuses for why he couldn't have one. _

"_Haven't seen you in a few days," she says from the doorway of her bathroom, and he doesn't miss the slight catch in her statement. "Been busy?"_

_He nearly laughs because - no - he hasn't been. What's there to keep him busy? Vampires come and go because he knows them all by name and his pack is all grown up - no more pups. It's a bit nostalgic - the way he can still see them when he thinks hard enough - just phased, afraid, __**adorable**__. (Never tell Collin and Brady that) It takes his mind to disturbing places, with kids and laughter and __**home**__. - he knows better than to think of things so absolutely unfeasible. Like it's something he's always wanted - just not with Bella. _

"_Jake?"_

_He blinks - eyes focus on bare legs and arms, on a skin tight tank top and long hair trying to hide cleavage. It's funny how his mind can change so quickly . . . . "Sorry, just tired, I guess."_

_She's finished brushing her teeth and she's walking towards him now - a look he cant place. "What happened the other night?"_

_He's surprised that she brought it up, she's never been one to talk about things head on. . . It's always a game with her. - He's even more surprised that he's smiling at her, that she's smiling back at him. "I have no idea," he says, and they know it's the truth. "But I'm not sorry - so don't expect me to apologize."_

_Her hand is on him now - warm, soft - flat against his stomach. "I felt guilty at first," she admits, and his face falls a little. "I still do, I guess. It's so wrong, ya know? But then. . . . .it felt good, and I cant forget about it." Eyes lift, find uncertainty hidden behind stone. "I've tried."_

_His hand lifts, fingertips grace the skin on her elbow, other hand hesitantly pressing against her hip - pushing her back. . .back. . .back. . "Me too."_

_She's under him and her lips taste __**so good**__ and the skin on her legs is burning holes through his sides - squeezing, wrapping, curling. Her heart is pounding into his chest and her tongue is like candy against the roof of his mouth - and it's all burning, it's like fire engulfing him and he __**loves**__ it. His hands are everywhere but it just isn't enough - he wants more - and he's ripping her shirt off, throwing it to the floor, tearing the cloth of her shorts and he doesn't know where they end up - but he doesn't care because he can __**feel **__her now - skin on skin. _

"_Jake -"_

_He knows what she's saying with just his name - hot breath through swollen, wet lips - and his hand is between her legs, his lips are pulling at the skin on her neck - down to her chest, all over her breasts. Her body is humming in rhythm with the fan across the room and he can almost feel it all. . . .__**almost**__. _

_He lifts his head, finds her eyes - he wants to see her when he does this, when he finally takes that last step - and she's looking back at him and it's like they're in their own little cloud - steam and heat and sweat - and he cant remember the last time someone made him feel like this. He doesn't know what she's doing to him but it's like a drug and he's craving it and he's __**getting it**__ - sits up, slides shorts away. . .away. . .away. . . _

"_Oh my god. . ."_

_She's saying it and he's thinking it and they're both __**feeling**__ it - above her, between her, inside of her - it's like he's sunken into fiery velvet and liquid silk and he's never been quite so high on something that's been so close to him for so long. It's like: dark hair through calloused fingers, limbs tangling, lips trailing down. . .down. . .down. . _

_She's melted into the bed and he's melted into her and it's like there's nothing else - he cant feel anything else. He's moving faster now, harder, because he can - because she can take it, because she __**wants**__ it like he wants it and it's not enough - they need more. His fingers are pulling her hair, her lips are pulling at his - teeth biting, grazing - and he's dying to let go, he wants to __**let go**__. It's when he feels her lift into him, when he hears her begging for more, when he hears her breath catching and her heart pounding in an erratic symphony with his own. . . He does. _

_And it's really like nothing he's ever felt before. Because there are stars behind her eyes and blood under her fingernails - dragging, gripping, pulling - and he's never seen anything as beautiful - he's never felt anything like this before. He's coiled and he's begging for that feeling - something he can barely remember - and before he can blink she's in his mouth, she's all over him, and it's all he can take - he explodes in a show of colors and shapes and pretty little pictures and feeling himself inside her, feeling it all in the way she's completely relaxed, holding perfectly still - it's like he can finally breathe again. He's staring at her and they both know he's inside her - that maybe it should have been thought of, planned for - but nothing about this was planned and he means that in more ways than he could ever explain. He's drowning in pools of caramel with his forehead pressed so lightly against hers - with his hands tracing all of her, feeling with every inch of what he is because he's never loved feeling something so much. Nothing has ever been like this before and he's wondering things he shouldn't be while feeling things he knows are forbidden - but he cant stop. He cant stop with the way his lips are brushing hers softer than before, with the way he's kissing her and touching her and still wanting her. . . .she's overwhelmed by what he's implying with the sparks in his eyes and the gentleness in the way he's still inside of her - still needing her. _

_He rolls them so that he's holding her against him and he feels it when she drifts off to sleep under the comfort of sweet kisses and the hum of her fan. . . - he shouldn't stay as long as he does. . .but he thinks that leaving will be more consequential for him in the end. _

He's not surprised to find himself alone when eyes refocus and the rain finally starts to sting a little despite his ever rising temperature. He's not surprised to find that Bella is already gone to bed and that she's broken another handful of dishes. He's not surprised to find his pillow and blanket sprawled messily over the back of the couch - implementing his banishment from his own room.

And part of him isn't surprised to find that he doesn't mind sleeping down here, away from her - that he's put to sleep with thoughts of fiery velvets and liquid silks. . . .with pools of caramel and long dark hair. . .

.

**a/n. Please - if this is confusing for you, send me a PM. Lmao.**

**Thank you so much for reading! Reviews are beautiful. =)**


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